What is culture and what is diversity?
Culture=was defined as the collective personality of a set of people.
Diversity= was defined as different, or group of mixture of different people or beliefs.
I would say if I were asked these questions before this class this is how I would have responded. Through this course I have learned there is much more than collective beliefs or a group of people. These definitions are what I would consider surface cultures, but each person has their own culture due to experiences, privilege or disadvantage, environment, birth order etc. There is so much that makes us different that not even the differences are the same. The third answer I got was from a teacher who immigrated with her parents in the 70's from England. She said Culture and diversity are similar, it is the daily routine at home, a way of interacting socially. When she moved they felt like they were coming to cowboy country in Colorado, she knew they were cowboys because they had guns hanging in the back window of their truck, she had never seen a gun. Back in England the're whole village only grocery shopped on Friday or Saturday. Sunday after church people take a walk and picnic on the country side, then they go to the pub and have a Guinness or lemonade and sit outside talking for hours. Because the little town in Colorado was mostly ranch land there were no social shopping or gathering places. She never became accustom to this life style, she married a man from her home town in England and stayed in the area raising their children as American's.
This gave me such insight to a person I have been working with for years and never asked her about her culture. As I was writing the reflection this week I was speaking of a way my culture was misinterpreted and still felt anger towards this person, this experience took place in the early 70's. As I wrote it I realized there was no way this person could see the misinterpretation because it wasn't part of her reality. Suddenly I felt no more anger. I will really enjoy people much more asking questions to learn more about their deeper culture.
Tina,
ReplyDeleteIt really is amazing how we think we know some people and then realize they have a whole past with many experiences that we don't know about. This happens to me a lot. I had a traumatic experience growing up from my father dying tragically and it amazes me when I mention this to people because they automatically want to say they are sorry and don't believe it could have happened to someone like me. But honestly, I have lived more of my life without him than with him and don't understand the surprise people get when they find out. But that is because it is part of my deep culture and it is all that I know of. When others haven't had a traumatic experience like this, they can't imagine or understand what it is like. Each one of us is so different in so many ways with our on deep culture embedded in us. Culture that is not able to be seen or understood by others unless they ask.
Victoria Leming
It is so important that we get to know people before we judge them. We miss out on friendships when we do. I know because I use to do that. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not, but you can not just count everyone out just because of a few disappointments.
ReplyDeleteTina, As you mentioned culture is deep within and not just on the surface. We need to look into what makes a person for what they believe in rather than looking at a person from the outside. Its easy to judge someone then getting to know them first. We might be very surprised to see what we are really made up of. Thank you for sharing your post with us. I am happy to hear that your perspective on that person has changed.
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